


Unlike Any Other

by Dana



Series: Without You, What Would I Be? [5]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hank Loves Connor and Connor Loves Hank, Happy Ending, Love doesn't fix everything but it's a good thing to have, M/M, Mentions of depression and references to suicidal ideation, Not Beta Read, POV Second Person, Post-Game, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Soft Character Interactions, introspective Hank is soft and full of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 16:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dana/pseuds/Dana
Summary: Connor keeps on telling Hank he loves him, but he hardly ever says it back.





	Unlike Any Other

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly written today at work because I had nothing better to do with my time, ha ha ha. Writing while on the clock = the sweetest thing. Also, I needed to write some fluff, but my fluff is always kind of angsty so... yeah, there's also that.
> 
> Anyhow, please enjoy this gift of introspective Hank being a big old softy who's in love with his android.

I love you.

         I love you.

                   _I love you._

Connor says it all the time. Give him the slightest provocation and he's baring his synthetic heart for all the world to see.

Well, at least, he does for you.

He's soft, too fucking sincere. Is a little shit, too, who's refined not listening to your orders into some sort of an art. You can blame it on his big brown eyes, those plush pink lips, but sometimes you still manage to forget he's a literal killing machine. You saw it last at CyberLife Tower. Those five guards didn't stand a chance. Of course, neither would you if you'd been in their place. You shouldn't have even been there, but that was your own damn fault. For having the audacity to get duped by his fucking double.

But he loves you. He tells you and he means it – he's too young and soft and the world hasn't broken him with its cynicism, so he says it and the words are light, not weighted down by a lifetime of broken promises and shitty regrets. Give it enough time, sure, and maybe he'll end up just as bitterly resentful as everyone else. But as it is, he's not, and he loves you, and you're pretty damn certain you'll never understand why.

You've asked him about it, asked him plenty, reminded him of your myriad bad habits, as if he could fucking forget. He's picked you up from a drunken stupor more than once already – he's taken away the loaded gun, he's saved your fucking life.

'You don't see yourself the way I see you, Hank,' he says, as if it could be all that different.

But he's an android, so of course it fucking is. He sees you in ways no other human possibly could, and it's not just because he can analyze you at a glance, break you down into your base components. Whatever you've been eating (that was unhealthy, probably). Whatever you'd been drinking (you know you're an alcoholic, he doesn't need to constantly remind you). He sees the good in the bad, and that's all he cares about. Well, he _cares_ about the bad shit too – he nags you plenty about the negative, tries to suggest healthful alternatives, and sometimes you can deal with. But not always.

And he keeps on telling you he loves you, but you hardly ever say it back.

It's not that you don't – love him, that is. You're just not as comfortable when it comes to speaking the words. Used to say it to your wife, all the fucking time – for better or worse – and it's been enough time now, you aren't the man you used to be, so who even knows if you'd ever been telling her the truth.

Clara got out of the way before you hit rock bottom. Maybe if she hadn't left, you wouldn't have turned to the whisky, or the gun –

Now that's a fucking lie.

Losing Cole left a void that nothing else could fill. And loving Connor, that doesn't replace him, it never could – but it gives you something else to wake up for in the morning, something good and pure. Someone who needs protecting, because the world is fucking awful. Someone who, for whatever reason, wants to help take care of you.

So you used to say _I love you_ all the time, and maybe you never really meant it, maybe it was just another lie, like how you ended up lying about your vows. When you say it to Connor, _I love you_ , it's because you know you do, but you don't want to say it too much, you don't want to be the reason he grows sick of the words.

Of course, you still feel like a fucking bastard. He says it, and sometimes you just – shut the fuck up up, feel the anxiety clawing at your insides, ready to rip you apart. But does he ever ask you why you hardly ever say it back to him? Why you're never the one who says it in the first place? No, and you know it hurts him, because he clams up, face gone blank. Like he's more a robot now than he ever was before.

And if he does say something, he acts like it's no big deal. 'It's no problem, Lieutenant', he might say, when you know it certainly fucking _is_.

He's got you eating healthier. Now you're jogging with him two days a week, and you walk Sumo every single fucking day, sometimes in the morning before leaving for work, and always at night. And sometimes it isn't easy, sometimes it's fucking rough as hell, but you've changed because of him and you're going to keep on changing. It's been impossibly difficult at times, too much bullshit to deal with and it piles right on. You want to better yourself for personal reasons, to prove you're not a slob 24-fucking-7, that you don't always need him to care care of you, you can do it yourself – and you want to do it for him, because he's given you the best reason ever to keep on living, and you appreciate him more than you could ever say, because nothing seems _enough_.

Sometimes, sure, you still don't want to be alive – not existing, after all, is a lot easier than the alternative. But it's easier now, because you aren't alone (Sumo had been there, but it just wasn't the same). Connor being there with you makes it that much fucking easier.

It's a night like any other. You're up too late, and you only plan on having the one beer. Connor's sitting beside you on the couch, your bodies are almost touching. His LED is blue, sometimes flickering yellow before flipping back over. He's just a few inches away from you, but it feels like miles, the distance is a physical ache. You know it won't be long and you'll retire to the bedroom, and Connor will follow. You hadn't known what you were missing out on until he started sleeping with you, and fuck it all if you haven't turned into some sort of sap, but you don't only mean the sex.

Sumo's snores drift into the living room from where he's asleep in the kitchen. Home. Before Connor walked into your life, it'd been a long while since this house of yours had felt like a home.

The tv's on, but there's nothing good to watch. You'd put on a rerun of some old police procedural that sometimes makes you laugh and doesn't tend to make you feel like shit; one that Connor loves to over-analyze and talk about just how little any of it makes sense.

'See, Connor,' you'd said. 'It's just a tv show. You can't pick it apart like that, you aren't getting the point.' You wonder if tumblr's still around – you bet he'd love it there, finding like-minded individuals to nitpick plot points. Fucking _discourse_.

He'd looked at you with a little frown on his lips, the sort that made your heart pang. 'But it doesn't make _sense_.'

But that was close to half an hour ago now, and now you've finished the rest of your beer. You turn off the set and toss the remote to the side, before you lean forward, pressing your hands together, bowing your head. It weighs on you the way little else does, your weakness, your inability to say the thing you mean more than anything else.

Connor, of course, notices.

'Hank? Is something wrong?'

Your mouth twitches at the corner, you almost feel like smiling. '...I love you.'

His LED blinks yellow, but then it's back to blue. 'What was that, Hank?'

Again with the _Hank_. At least he's gone back to calling you by your name. Because him calling you by your title, combined with that blank, robotic tone, you absolutely fucking hate it, even though you only ever hear it because it's your own fucking fault. On the other hand, maybe this finally means he's getting it into that head of his that it's Lieutenant when you're on the job, and Hank when you're together at home.

'Don't act like you couldn't hear,' and you're grinning as you sit back up, dropping your hands down to slap against your legs. He's still close by, sitting primly, his hands in his lap.

And he's grinning, because he had in fact heard you, but being that he's Connor – who is, after all, a grade A little shit – he wants you to say it again.

So you sit up the rest of the way, square your shoulders, grin right back at him because it's suddenly the easiest thing in the world. 'I love you, Connor. I love you.'

His lashes flutters as his expression softens into the sweetest of smiles. It's not like he's a complete innocent, but sometimes he fools even you. Because he's soft, and he's sweet, and he loves you with all of his heart, and sometimes he actually manages to convince you that you're deserving of that love.

You scoot over so your knee bumps against his, and you wrap an arm around his shoulders, tugging him in close. He turns his head, his breath soft and warm – breaths he doesn't even need to take.

'I love you, Hank.' It's muffled against your neck, and he slides his arms around you, presses his face in closer. Bunches his other hand up in the front of your shirt, holding on tight.

'I love you, Connor.' You turn your head as you hug him to you, press a kiss to his forehead as he does the same against your neck, and you close your eyes, and smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I love these guys so much, thanks for reading, I do hope you enjoyed.
> 
> I really don't know what it is about writing in Hank's pov but it's really 100% The Actual Best.


End file.
